Mark Bonner and Cambridge United battling against the odds as a Plan comes together

If one club was going to pull off achieving something big in half the time most others are normally given, you would not bet against it being Cambridge United.

For the last eight years, the club have worked tirelessly to develop their youth scheme without any external funding, something which has won them admirers from far and wide.

Now, having been promoted back into the Football League, United have been awarded a provisional licence to operate in the Elite Player Performance Plan – the scheme initiated by the Premier League to overhaul the previous academy and centre of excellence systems of youth development.

The drive and commitment of everyone involved, from director of football Jez George’s Walks for Change and Equality in 2009 and 2010 to the coaching staff who have put in hours and hours of work, has put United in a strong position.

But clubs wishing to be a part of the EPPP must pass an audit, which effectively gives them a licence and funding for three years, and United’s is coming up in December, giving them at least six months less than other clubs have had operating under the criteria before being audited for category three status.

While some might wilt under the pressure, United and their academy manager Mark Bonner are up for the challenge.

“I’m confident that, even though we’ve got a lot to do in a short space of time, we can fulfil all of it and hopefully be successful,” said Bonner.

“We’ve always done things against the odds. I think that’s the way the club’s survived and got to this point in time with a youth policy.

“Everyone knows the history of the last eight years, so to arrive in a place where the Football League feel confident enough that we can be given a provisional licence and apply to audit is really complimentary about all the work that’s gone on.

“Now we’ve got to take it to another level. We’ve got an opportunity to get better and we mustn’t lose sight of what we want to do.”

United will be judged in 10 categories, including coaching programmes, sports science, education and welfare and recruitment process.

They already know they will score zero for productivity – they have technically not seen any players progress to their first team or been sold from their academy because it has not been recognised as an official programme – and will not score heavily for facilities as they do not own their training ground, with the associated infrastructure.

However, the productivity element is still up for debate and it is not clear whether that would be taken into account and go towards the overall score.

“We know there are certain things we can’t fulfil on the criteria, so the certain things we can – the quality of our provision for coaching and the coaching programme, and education and welfare –we need to be as up to speed on as we can and deliver as best we can,” said Bonner.

“And a lot of the things we’ve already got in place, it’s just about formalising things a little bit more and making sure it’s to the letter of the law that they want to see.

“The club’s got a tradition of producing players and the club should take great pride in the fact that three home-grown players played in the play-off final at Wembley only a few months ago.

“That’s something we want to try to continue. Every time the club gets better and the players in the first team get stronger, which is continuing all the time, the demands get higher and the standards set are higher to get into the first team.

“But that’s all right and that’s the challenge for all of us, to create an environment and give them a coaching programme that allows them to get better.”

And Bonner, who has been promoted from professional phase lead coach as part of the process, will not be stopping once category three status is achieved.

“I’ve been at the club for three years in my second spell here, so I know the club inside out, the way they work and the vision of where we want to be as an academy,” said Bonner.

“The vision doesn’t change – we want to be really successful, to pass this audit, to be the best category three club we can and then strive to be a category two club.”